Losing Hope: Ukraine's Older Refugees Long For Home After A Year Living In Exile

Tetyana Potapova, 62, rides a tram in Krakow, Poland, on February 2. She fled Ukraine after her hometown, Slobozhanske, was occupied by Russian forces at the start of the war.
 

Potapova, who previously worked as a chemist in Kharkiv, is now adjusting to her new life in Krakow, which consists of learning Polish and taking care of her 9-year-old grandson, Kyrylo.

At a gathering of Ukrainian and Polish retirees that also serves as a Polish language class, Potapova rolls the dice during a board game. In an interview she recalled the horror of falling under Russian occupation. "It was impossible to leave the house. It was scary. The Russians were checking everyone," she said.

This backpack was the only baggage she took when she fled from her home. Potapova felt she had no choice but to flee, as her daughter needed medicine for diabetes and her grandson was showing signs of stress.
 

Initially Potapova (third left) had a few cleaning jobs, but the offers soon stopped coming. People over 60, she says, are not in demand on the labor market. "I find joy in learning Polish.... But I miss my job. I felt confident there. Here I constantly worry."

 

Another Ukrainian in Poland is 62-year-old Svitlana Skibina, pictured as she lights a candle during mass at a church in Warsaw. Skibina fled Kharkiv last April with her disabled husband, her son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter.
 

Skibina previously worked at a library at a medical college but is finding few options open to her in Warsaw. "For the first two months, I had a terrible depression. I didn't want anything. I only wanted to go home," she said.

Her 62-year-old husband, Serhiy, sits on a bed at their rented apartment in Warsaw.

Though Skibina enjoys Polish language classes, she is haunted by guilt. She left, while many of her friends back in Kharkiv continue to suffer. "The pain does not go away. Will we ever go back? I would like to help to rebuild my town, but will I have enough strength?"

Another refugee is 82-year-old former nurse Tamila Melnichenko from Kyiv. She keeps herself busy by reading Ukrainian and Russian classics, memorizing poems, and pacing the corridors at a Polish retirement home as the days slowly tick by.

Melnichenko was initially taken in by a Polish family. But due to her advanced age and physical limitations, she was transferred to the retirement home, in Glogoczow, 17 kilometers south of Krakow. It is paid for by social services. 

 

Melnichenko realized that living alone in a fourth-floor Kyiv apartment was no longer feasible when air-raid sirens were going off. The widow and her only daughter, Oksana, decided to leave with Oksana's son. "We thought it was only for a month, and we did not take anything with us. We even left unwashed dishes in the sink," she said.

Oksana helps Melnichenko out of her wheelchair in a room she shares with two other refugees. "I don't bother anyone. The staff here are very helpful. I receive warm meals. What else would an old person need?" she said. "But I want to go back to Ukraine."  

Her thoughts constantly drift back to Ukraine, where she has lived all her life and raised her family. "I'm old. I want to die there. Now I don’t know where I will die," she said.